The Not-So-Grand New Party

I’m not old enough to remember the Goldwater era of the Republican Party, and I was too busy reading comics and playing with GI Joe action figures to have a vivid memory of Reaganite politics. It wasn’t until the Cheney/Lieberman debate in 2000, that I realized that I agree that market economics and limited government was the rhetoric that made the most sense. It was then that I decided to call myself a Republican. Being 20/20, hindsight tells me that I was not really a Republican, but intuitively a libertarian. I watched the GOP over the last eight years relinquish its sales pitch and become the party of fiscal irresponsibility and trigger happy alarmism.

Since I’ve voted in the Republican primaries over the last few years, they often send me questionnaires asking my opinions on the issues. They’ve recently decided to utilize the internet to receive online suggestions for their 2008 platform. Since they’re having trouble figuring out what they stand for, Andrew Davis, writing for the Libertarian Party Blog decided to help them out:

Domestic Spending and Taxation

We, the Republican Party, believe that taxes are much too high for all Americans. If there was one thing President George Bush did right (seriously, there was only about one thing), it was cutting taxes. Unfortunately, we forgot about balancing the budget. In order to maintain the Bush tax cuts in the future, and to maintain our current level of spending, we encourage the borrowing of money from countries like China, and those in the Middle East. Is China a growing economic competitor? Sure, but you must be crazy to think that we will be reducing government spending.

The Economy

We, the Republican Party, admit we have no idea what we’re doing with the economy, so we’ll just give more power to the Fed and hope they can figure it out.

Terrorism

We, the Republican Party, support and encourage the policy of fear mongering, which has been so effective these past eight years. Without keeping the American public in constant fear of attack, our assault on civil liberties would not be possible. We maintain the policy of, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” unless it comes to nations we hope to borrow from to cover more stimulus checks (please refer to “The Economy” for more information).

Energy

We, the Republican Party, would like to give more subsidies to our partners in Big Oil, but someone (we won’t point fingers, but his name starts with John and his last name rhymes with McLame) is pushing for cap and trade policies. While we told said individual that cap and trade is actually similar to policies proposed by Democrats, we decided for the sake of unity on a compromise called, “Cap and Trade…and Subsidies.” If gas prices get too high, we’ll just invade Canada.

Privacy and Surveillance

We, the Republican Party, believe that all invasions of privacy are for the good of the country, and if the programs are not necessarily legal, we will ensure that we appoint individuals to the Department of Justice that make them legal.

Foreign Policy

We, the Republican Party, believe that if we continue to bully other nations, they won’t mess with America. It worked for us on the playground in grade school, and we’re sure it will work the same at the international level.

Iraq

We, the Republican Party, have no objections to remaining in Iraq for a million-trillion years, no matter what the Iraqi government thinks. If they give us any trouble, we’ll just re-invade them.

Health Care

We, the Republican Party, used to believe that it wasn’t the responsibility of government to provide health care for all people at the taxpayer’s expense; however, Democrats called us names and we didn’t like that. Instead of justifying our beliefs on the principles of individualism, fiscal responsibility and capitalism, we will instead capitulate.

Second Amendment

We, the Republican Party, recognize that our presidential candidate has been called “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment” by the NRA, and that George Bush tried to undermine the very idea of a right to bear arms–but as long as we pretend to be for gun rights, we think people will believe us.